About the author

Originally from London, I moved to Poland to absorb as much of the culture as humanly posssible. Maybe the biggest influence on me has been the food and I credit my adopted babcia, (Polish for grandmother) Ania, with much of the information here. I lived in Zielona Gora and Szklarska Poreba which are in the west and south-west of Poland respectively.Please feel free to leave any comments or visit my other site An Englishman in Poland

Friday, 20 July 2007

This is my all time favourite and it is the national dish of Poland. In it's simplest form it is bacon and cabbage (but much different and better than the national dish of Ireland) and so I will give the recipe in a little more detail but experimentation on this recipe is encouraged. Bigos can vary greatly in taste and method of preparation from family to family as well as from region to region and I am going to implement a form where chorizo (Spanish/Portuguese sausage) is used instead of kielbasa (Polish sausage). I have to wait until I can get some good chorizo from London as it is not popular here and I will post the outcome then.

One thing to remember is that it tastes better each time it is reheated so you should make a larger amount which should last for quite a few days and really the best bigos is the last bit that is left after a few days. Also reheat it very well so that the meat is not hard with fat, and also to ensure you do not get ill.

The meat amounts and type vary according to how meaty and fatty you like it. Obviously the more fatty the stronger and nicer the taste. The original bigos which the hunters had was very fatty. This recipe is a good way to use up spare meat that you have and do not know what to use it for.

Method

1. Wash the cabbage in cold water. Strain and put fresh water in and rinse again. Repeat about 3 times and taste to ensure the cabbage is not sour anymore. If it is rinse again.

Squeeze cabbage to remove most of water.

2. Put dry mushrooms into water and leave for about 20 mins.

3. While the cabbage is in the pot use a sharp, long knife to cut the long strands of cabbage.

8. Stir all ingredients and then put on low heat. Cover and boil until cabbage is soft (Anywhere from 30mins to 2 hours depending on the cabbage)

9. While the cabbage is boiling cut meat quite small and stew in frying pan with water. When soft add meat and juice to cabbage.

10. Keep stirring

11. Add plums or plum jam (I prefer using jam) towards end of cooking. Add salt and ground pepper to taste. About 10 minutes after you determine the cabbage was soft and adding jam, it is ready.

Bigos is traditionally served with bread and you hold the bread in one hand and take a bite while eating bigos using the other hand. But you can have it with anything you feel appropriate. The first time I came across Bigos I did not know what it was and so I put it into a roll and ate it like a sandwich. Although I got some strange looks it still tasted great this way.

Bigos is just great! And what I love about it the most is what you mentioned, that it tastes even better when reheated (for the 2nd-3rd time. as far as my taste is concerned), which is kind of convenient when you are a lazy college student...

For anyone who got a bit worried about getting a couple of the ingredients reading the recipe - don't be! You might recognise them under other names, and they're all easy to get hold of at a normal supermarket, if you're without a local sklep ;)

Vegeta = OK, no direct equivalent if you can't find it! I usually use a bit of celery salt or garlic salt, caraway and something like Worcestershire sauce or Maggi seasoning, and I've had no complaints.

If you're looking in your local sklep for the cabbage it's called "kapusta kwaszona", but you can make a decent cross-border bigos-a-like with the jars of German sauerkraut (that's sort of fusion food I guess!)

It's a recipe well worth the small amount of effort - hope that helps encourage people to try it out.

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